Disappointment on the trail

The sun gets in my eyes as I sneak a glance of the wide valley laid out before me. The rocks in the trail are taking all of my concentration, but I’m fortunate that Will keeps reminding me to look up and take in the views. I’m glad I do, but I quickly turn my attention back to the task at hand as I narrowly miss a cactus on the left.

We’re riding Scorpion and Pyramid, a pair of “black diamond” rated trails in South Sedona that are so new that the guy at the bike shop had to draw them on our map. It’s a challenging ride, but I’m feeling good and and am successfully riding features that I might have skipped last season. After a bumpy traverse and a pretty turbo downhill section, it’s clear that we’re through the gnarly bits. I’m pumped – this was a hard ride, and I’m crushing it!

Some of the hard stuff.

Squeezy, technical downhill corners… yikes!

After a few minutes of rest we take off again and I relax a little bit, enjoying the views and taking my time. Will speeds away as I stop to watch a mama bird bring food to her babies, nestled in a depression in the rock above my head.

The birds were nesting in the cliff on the left. You can just make out the trail snaking below it.

This section of the trail is mellower, but sometimes the exposure gives me the heebie jeebies. When it gets too sketchy I get off and walk, which slows the pace down enough that I can take a second to admire the cryptobiotic soil and cactus. One of these days I’ll get lucky and see a snake, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Eventually I feel the need to get a move on, and start trucking down the trail. I round a corner into the shade and start pedaling up a small rock bridge when my front wheel gets stuck in a hole.

Without enough momentum, bike wheels quickly lose their ability to roll over obstacles. Normally when this happens your bike will stop moving forward and fall to one side. Ideally you want to fall towards the uphill side (less distance to fall!) but I start to tip to the downhill side. I stick my downhill foot out and try to find my balance, but my foot gets stuck in another gap between the rocks!

I go over, hear a loud POP in my right ankle, and land upside down, legs tangled in my bike. It’s clear that something is wrong and a quick glance shows the top of my sock already filling up with swollen skin. Gross.

The offending feature.

For 30 seconds I sit just downhill of the trail and let the tears come. It feels good for a second but I quickly realize how embarrassed I would be if someone found me like this – tears are ok but ridiculously loud, wailing cries of self pity are not. I gather my bike and hobble off down the trail towards our meeting spot, hot tears rolling down my cheeks and splashing on the rocks.

My ankle hurts, but that’s not why I’m crying. I’m crying because I was doing so well, and feeling so confident, and one silly mistake (on an easy section!) results in a sprained ankle. All I can think is how unfair this is, and what I would give to go back in time to do that section again.

When Will sees me walking my bike he starts riding towards me, knowing immediately that something is wrong. Together we walk down to the trail junction and start to check things out.

As I explain what happened, Will pulls off my shoe and starts feeling my ankle. It’s already pretty swollen but doesn’t feel broken, so I take some Ibuprofen and work on getting comfy while Will rides the few miles back to pick up the bus.

Day one (Left) before the swelling had expanded to my whole foot. Day two (right) after the swelling had picked up but before the bruising set in. Now (one week later) it’s both swollen and bruised, pretty much all over.

The Aftermath

It was clear almost immediately that this was a pretty serious injury as far as #buslife goes. The swelling and bruising continued to increase for the following two days, which made walking pretty painful. I went to Urgent Care for X-Rays on day 4. The doctor said he thought he might have seen a crack, but the radiologist disagreed and they sent me on my way. Later this week I’ll see a recommended Physical Therapist who should be able to give me a better idea of how bad the sprain is and what my recovery time will look like.

This past week has been trying for both Will and I. I’m in a good amount of physical pain, but it pales in comparison to the torture that is being confined to the bus, RICEing my ankle while Will explores the local trail systems. On top of that, life on the bus without access to activities is not all it’s cracked up to be – there are a lot of things that we deal with simply because the outdoor access is so great. When you take away the biking, running, and exploring, it’s not nearly as easy to overlook the other stuff.

I don’t mean to complain too much. Sedona is gorgeous and we’ve had a fun time visiting some of the art galleries and restaurants. I’m anxious to get healthy again, but am definitely wary about pushing things too hard and ending up with longer term problems. At this point R2R2R is definitely off the table and we’re planning on reevaluating the rest of our summer plans based on the doc’s opinion on Friday. I’ll keep you updated!

Alyssa jumped head first into outdoor sports when she quit her job at a successful tech startup to hike the John Muir Trail in 2013. Afterwards, she convinced Will to join her in starting a consulting company. He was game, with one condition: they move from Mountain View, CA to Boulder, CO. In Boulder they fell in love with mountain biking and trail running and realized that as long as they had internet, they could work from anywhere. Thus, the bus idea was born, and after a few months of hard work renovating the 2001 GMC BlueBird, they started living the dream of traveling full time while still maintaining "adult" careers. Thanks for following along on our adventure!

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We're Will & Alyssa. In 2013 we quit our Silicon Valley startup jobs to move to Boulder, Colorado and start our own company. The following year we decided to put the "remote work" trend to the test by moving into a 37' school bus we converted into the ultimate adventure mobile. We traveled full time for two years, and recently settled down in Bozeman, Montana to enjoy the mountain life with our dogs Hilde and Yodel.

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